In 1978, I was the Head Writer on The Krofft Superstar Hour, a live-action variety and adventure series on NBC's Saturday morning schedule. It featured the Bay City Rollers, a once-popular Scottish rock group, mixed in with a bevy of other characters left over from other Saturday morn shows from the world of Sid and Marty Krofft. The program didn't perform well in the ratings as an hour but after they cut it to a half-hour and renamed it The Bay City Rollers Show, it did well enough that NBC reran the thirteen episodes for several years.
Like I said, it starred the Bay City Rollers and at the time, the Bay City Rollers starred Les McKeown, their lead singer. The Rollers were all great guys but not all of them were happy to be in Los Angeles doing a kids' show instead of in Europe or elsewhere, touring and performing for older audiences. They were also not all that happy to be called upon to speak and act and serve as hosts, which was not what they did best.
Furthermore, their thick Scottish accents caused a lot of problems — for us because most of them simply could not deliver some lines in a manner that American audiences might understand; for them because even getting them close to intelligible meant long, long hours with a dialogue coach. (Actually, it was a good warm-up for us folks behind the cameras. The next show most of us worked on for the Kroffts starred two Japanese ladies who could not speak English. Compared to them, the Rollers were all professional announcers.)
And then there was the fact that the Rollers were fighting — mostly Leslie against the other four. Derek, Alan, Woody and Eric lived somewhat happily together while in L.A. in a big house in the Valley that Marty Krofft owned. Les had to be housed elsewhere, lest someone kill someone.
What was the battle about? I honestly never found out, though it seemed to have something to do with four of them thinking they were a five-man band and one of them (guess which one) thinking they were one star with four back-up singer/musicians. Fortunately for us, they were professional enough to keep most of that out of the studio and to fully honor their contractual commitments. In fact, all five were often apologetic about the frictions and speaking limitations they brought to the program.
In the photo above, Les is the guy on the top with his hands on the shoulders of Alan (left) and Eric (right). Woody is below Alan, Derek is below Eric and the lady in the center is the wonderful Billie Hayes in her role as Witchiepoo.
As you've figured out by now, this is an obit for Les, who died last Tuesday at the age of 65. To quote the New York Times, "His family announced the death in a statement on social media. The statement said he died at his home, but did not say where that was or specify the cause."
I got along fine with all of them. They were all good musicians and Les was great at exuding all the charm and sex appeal it took to be the lead singer in a Boy Band…and probably still does. Given that I still get occasional questions about what it was like to work with them (or just him), it would seem he and they made a lasting impression on a lot of people.